the advice of her saints, and their dear voices speedily whispered in her ear: "Go, daughter of God; no weakness; fulfil your mission; heaven will not forsake you!" Early the next morning, the heroine left her hosts, who remained in ignorance that their humble roof had sheltered the country's savior. Resolved to conceal from the King the contempt she entertained for him and to see in him only an instrument for the welfare of Gaul, Joan returned to court. The Maid's disappearance had caused alarm, alarm among those whose every wish was for the termination of the English domination. Joan's project--the King's consecration at Rheims--spread abroad by the councilors in the hope of giving the widest publicity to its absurdity, met, on the contrary, with a large number of supporters, all of whom were impressed with the political grandeur and the audacity, withal, of the idea. The Maid's return was looked upon as providential, and so powerful did the popular outcry wax that the craven monarch finally resigned himself to the idea of departing at the head of his troops that were constantly swelling in numbers, thanks to the fame of the Maid. The march to Rheims was decided on and undertaken. The journey to the royal town displayed the genius of the heroine from a side not before dreamed of. Matchlessly energetic and intrepid in her desperate combats with the foreign enemy of Gaul, she now showed herself endowed with an inexpressible power of persuasion. She undertook and succeeded in inducing the towns of the English or Burgundian party to become French again and to open their gates to Charles VII, from whom she had obtained, not without much trouble, a written promise of absolute amnesty for the dissidents. Without drawing her sword, Joan reconquered for the King all the fortified places on the route to Rheims. The heroine found in her soul, in her aversion to civil war, in her patriotism, such treasures of naïve eloquence that, coupled with her fame, her words penetrated the spirits of all, unarmed all hands, and won over all hearts to the cause of the miserable prince whom she protected, whom she covered with the splendor of her own plebeian glory, and whom she caused the people to love by speaking in his name.